Verse 21 appears to have little relevance to the rest of the context. However, Elihu has just rejected the idea of confronting God. The conclusion is that, if men cannot look at the bright glare of the sun, how much less can they look on the brightness of God.

And now men cannot look on the light: look is plural, but there is no subject for the verb. Therefore Revised Standard Version has supplied men. It may be translated as a passive; for example, “The light cannot be looked upon.” The word translated light is not to be taken as “lightning,” as in 36.32; 37.3.

When it is bright in the skies: bright translates a word found nowhere else in the Old Testament, though a related word occurs in Leviticus 13, which means “white,” as applied to a spot on the skin. However, the same word in Syriac means “to be dark or obscure,” and Rowley translates “And now men saw not the light, it was obscure in the skies.” This is followed by a number of other translations.

When the wind has passed and cleared them describes how the light becomes bright and impossible to look at. This line is translated by Revised Standard Version as a subordinate time clause, which in translation may have to be shifted forward; for example, “When the wind has blown away the clouds, a person cannot look at the dazzling light in the sky.”

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, Wiliam. A Handbook on Job. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1992. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .